Calls to remove Picton memorial
Petition launched in protest over 25m monument to Welsh officer
A PETITION has been launched calling for the removal of a 132-year-old memorial to Sir Thomas Picton.
The 25-metre tall monument to the Welsh officer of the British Army who fought in the Napoleonic Wars has stood since 1888, but there are now calls for an end to the celebration of the life of someone who, while lauded by many throughout the last two centuries as a British war hero, has been described as a “racist murderer”.
A PETITION has been launched calling for the removal of a 132-year-old memorial to a “colonial murderer” that is currently “blemishing the skyline” of Carmarthen.
On the outskirts of the town centre sits a memorial to Sir Thomas Picton, a Welsh officer of the British Army who fought in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century.
The 25-metre tall monument has stood since 1888, but there are now calls for an end to the celebration of the life of someone who, while lauded by many throughout the last two centuries as a British war hero, has been described as a “racist murderer”.
The petition was launched less than a day after a statue of Edward Colston was pulled down by protestors in Bristol on Sunday and thrown into the harbour.
This was part of ongoing Black Lives Matter protests throughout the UK, in the wake of the death of George Floyd in the US state of Minnesota on May 25.
The petition has already garnered more than a thousand signatures, with organisers saying that it will be handed to Carmarthenshire Council in a call to “end to such repugnant celebrations” of Picton.
“Given the current global focus on the Black Lives Matter movement, this memorial exists as a painful reminder of Welsh ignorance to our colonial past,” the petition in Carmarthen states.
“It is unthinkably inappropriate, ignorant and structurally racist to be honouring the achievements of an inexplicably evil individual, and implies that the Welsh state does not care enough about the importance of remembering the struggles of colonial subjects, but also black lives in general.
“In order to secure this necessary change to show solidarity to the movement, as well as respect the lives of murdered colonial subjects, we are asking you to sign and share this petition on all platforms, and we will then proceed to take this petition to Carmarthenshire Council in the hope that they will facilitate an end to such repugnant celebrations of a racist murderer.”
Picton has been celebrated in Carmarthen long before Picton Monument was erected; a previous monument was created more than 60 years before the current one, to recognise and remember the highest-ranking British officer killed at Waterloo in 1815, and still the only Welshman to be buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.
As well as the monument in Carmarthen, which is located in Picton Terrace, there is also the statue of him in Cardiff City Hall and a blue plaque in Haverfordwest.
His hometown was also home to Sir Thomas Picton School until it merged with another school in 2018 to become Haverfordwest High, while his name is also tied to pubs and other roads in Wales.
In his lifetime, he became notorious during a trial at which he was accused and initially found guilty of authorising the torture of a 14-yearold girl accused of stealing – torture which included being suspended by one arm on a pulley rope set in the ceiling and lowered onto a spike in the floor, bare foot first.
According to Dr Douglas Jones of the National Library of Wales: “Picton admitted ordering the torture, but claimed that it was legal under the Spanish law still being administered in Trinidad at the time, despite the island being under British rule.”
Picton’s governorship of Trinidad was described by Dr Jones as “authoritarian and brutal”. According to reports, he increased the number of lashes given to slaves, introduced a curfew imposed on them, and authorised executions.
Former town mayor Alun Lenny knows more than most about Carmarthen’s history, having served for many years as both a town and county councillor and having worked as a journalist both locally and nationally.
“Picton came to public attention initially for his governorship of Trinidad (1797-1803), as a result of which he was put on trial in England for illegally torturing a woman,” said Mr Lenny.
“Luisa Calderón was not a slave but a free young woman suspected of assisting one of her lovers to burgle the house of the man with whom she was living, making off with about £500. Torture had been requested by a local magistrate and approved in writing by Picton.
“During the trial Picton was subject to anti-Welsh racist remarks by the English press and public. Although Picton was found guilty, the conviction was later overturned. He then went from zero to hero for his exploits under Wellington in the Peninsular War against Napoleon in Portugal and Spain.”
While the debate over memorials to the past is clearly a complex one, Mr Lenny believes the best course of action in order to conquer ignorance is education, not eradication.
He added: “Far be it for me to defend the ruthless and often abhorrent behaviour of the British
Empire, and there’s no doubt that Picton was both villain and hero - as were innumerable others in times past.
“Unlike Bristol or Liverpool, Carmarthen was not built on the slave trade. If we start destroying memorials to the past where will it end?
“On Guildhall Square in Carmarthen is a memorial to those killed in the South Africa campaign at the very end of the 19th Century. During that campaign the British set up concentration camps, in which 20,000 black people and 28,000 Boers died of starvation or disease – most of them women and children. Do we remove it?
“The word memorial means ‘to remember.’ But do we? In my view, it would be much better to teach local children what the memorial stands for – the good and the bad. If we do that, the memorials will take on a new and very valuable role in contemporary society.
“Destroy them, and you wipe out memories of past injustice or cruelty, as well as any good those historic people might have done.”
Picton Monument in Carmarthen has been grade two listed since the early 1980s, but Carmarthenshire Council, which maintains it, has said that it will discuss the monument and other commemorations to Sir Thomas Picton in due course, before deciding what, if any, action will be taken.
The council’s leader, councillor Emlyn Dole, said: “It’s important that we have a conversation around this issue. That conversation has already started with the illumination of County Hall over the weekend in solidarity with all those who fight oppression. We are keen to have a more detailed conversation and are making plans to bring this to the council chamber as soon as possible where we, as members, can bring our feelings to the debate in a public arena so that we can come to a collective decision and take any appropriate action thereafter.”